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Ian "Marvin" Graye's Reviews > The Garden of Forking Paths
The Garden of Forking Paths
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The Universal Library
If life (or a life) can be construed as a text, then the universe might be (analogous to) a library:
"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries."
This early, 1941 collection is a mini-gallery of Borges stories that revolve around construction and interpretation, imagination and understanding, of the universe. On the way, it takes in time, space, meaning, truth, consciousness, our selves and our relationship with the universe.
Vast and Ambitious
For Borges, Man is a reader or librarian trying to read, interpret and understand the Library.
It's a vast project. Like its object (and perhaps its subject), it's infinite. Vast books can and have been dedicated to the project.
Borges makes this project his own, from a fictional point of view. However, he works under a self-imposed constraint:
"It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books - setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them.
"A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books."
Levity and Brevity
The result is one of enormous brevity, yet it's no less intellectually challenging and stimulating.
Borges jokingly blames laziness, but it's actually an amazing facility to hint at in five minutes of our reading time what could take writers and philosophers 500 pages to labour through (and not communicate so clearly).
Besides, we can safely assume that Borges was familiar with some actual vast works on his subject matter, not just imaginary ones.
The Appearance of Reality
Borges doesn't need to be encyclopaedic in his approach to the universe. He just pretends to be encyclopaedic. He uses detail, citation, criticism to feign plausibility, verisimilitude, truth and comprehensiveness.
His aim is to create a fictitious world that appears to be real. He hopes his fragments will convince us that they contain the essence of the entirety.
However, the whole project remains fictional and illusory.
In one of the worlds that he creates, there is a belief that "all books are the work of a single author who is timeless and anonymous."
In a way, it seems, there is only one book, and one act of creation.
Borges the Builder
We've become accustomed to authors "world building". They strive to build a fictional world that convinces us of its veracity.
On the other hand, religions posit that God created the world, the entirety of the universe.
Borges might be a writer, but he seems to place himself somewhere between the conventional writer and God.
While God might have created the material world, Borges creates an abstract and imaginary world.
However, in the process, he self-consciously draws attention to the process and method of creation. He is a master of metafiction.
The Hermeneutics of the Library
Equally, Borges is interested in the interpretation and understanding of the universe, the Library, the book.
He works at the boundary of the imagination, philosophy and hermeneutics. Indeed, his writing suggests that philosophy is fundamentally a work of imagination and interpretation of the Library of the universe.
Writers and philosophers alike are trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe.
Once we accept this metaphor, this truth, Borges invites us to have some fun with the universe he has created.
In a world otherwise preoccupied with the pursuit of order, sense and truth, he introduces play and games that involve hoaxes, fraud, fallacy, artifice, illusion, unreality, illogic, mirrors, mazes, labyrinths.
A World Deciphered by Detectives
This places the curious reader in the role of a detective who must sift through the evidence in order to determine the meaning of life:
"Tlön may well be a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth forged by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men." (view spoiler)
This decipherment is not as easy as it sounds. There is no certainty that any path taken will lead to the truth.
Like one of Borges' narrators, we all work at "the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopaedia."
For all the detail that the encyclopaedia might contain, the mirror reminds us that the universe (like our minds) is infinite, recurring and self-reflexive.
Making Sense of Books
Because a book is a mere fragment of the universe, there should be no reason to believe that the truth can be found in a book, either easily or at all. One of the narrators refers to "the vain and superstitious habit of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of the palm of one's hand..."
Nevertheless, Borges implies that a book, (precisely) because it contains a fragment of the universe, can also reflect its entirety or, at least, its infinity:
"I had wondered how a book could be infinite. The only way I could surmise was that it be a cyclical, or circular, volume, a volume whose last page would be identical to the first, so that one might go on indefinitely."
The Chaotic Library
Still, insofar as the books Borges writes about contain aspects of the universe, they reflect the chaos of the universe as a whole. Perhaps a book is like a mirror held up to the universe, even if it is refracted through author and reader.
This focus on chaos is part of the significance of the last story, "The Garden of Forking Paths". The paths lead to "several futures" (though not necessarily all).
We are accustomed to believing that a choice of paths represents a spatial decision (e.g., which direction to head down).
However, "the garden of forking paths was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'several futures (not all)' suggested to me the image of a forking in time, rather than in space."
Erik Desmazières - "Library of Babel, Hall of Planets"
The Labyrinth of Time
The mysteries of the universe are equally and inevitably mysteries about time and the nature of time:
"All things happen to oneself, and happen precisely, precisely now. Century follows century, yet events occur only in the present."
Hermeneutically, the Library, the universe is a "labyrinth of symbols. An invisible labyrinth of time."
There is much in the stories about rival philosophies of time:
"[One school of philosophy] denies the existence of time; it argues that the present is undefined and indefinite, the future has no reality except as present hope, and the past has no reality except as present recollection...
"[Another school asserts that] all time has already passed, so that our life is but a crepuscular memory, or crepuscular reflection, doubtlessly distorted and mutilated, of an irrecoverable process."
We aren't asked to choose between these alternatives. Borges lets us explore many forked paths:
"The Garden of Forking Paths is a huge riddle, or parable, whose subject is time."
In the Borgesian world, our imagination can experience what it might be like if any one of these theories of time was true.
Five Minutes of Vastness
Ironically, Borges gifts us an experience of the vastness of infinity, of the labyrinth of time, in stories that rarely take more than five minutes to read. For Borges, this is the true pleasure of the imagination: to derive infinite pleasure from something infinitesimal.
Still, this world is capable of being simultaneously vast, illusory and mischievous.
Borge jokingly warns that some won't be able to get their heads around his Library:
"Since not everybody is capable of experiencing [the pleasure of the imagination,] many will have to content themselves with simulacra."
Even if we can get into the Borgesian world, we might find, like one of the narrators, that our historical grip on reality is illusory:
"With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he realised that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him."
If only we could be certain that we are the dreamer, not the dream!
But is this just the ego vainly trying to master an infinite universe of which it has no real comprehension and over which it has no real power?
For Borges, as well as us, the questions have vast and entertaining implications.
ADDED EXTRAS:
“Merely a Man of Letters� - An Interview with Jorge Luis Borges by Denis Dutton, Michael Palencia-Roth and Lawrence I. Berkove
Podcast:
"Dutton: Why don’t you tell us about some of the philosophers who have influenced your work, in whom you’ve been the most interested?"
...
"Borges: ...I have no personal system of philosophy. I never attempt to do that. I am merely a man of letters. In the same way, for example that � well, of course, I shouldn’t perhaps choose this as an example � in the same way that Dante used theology for the purpose of poetry, or Milton used theology for the purposes of his poetry, why shouldn’t I use philosophy, especially idealistic philosophy � philosophy to which I was attracted � for the purposes of writing a tale, of writing a story? I suppose that is allowable, no?
Dutton: You share one thing certainly with philosophers, and that is a fascination with perplexity, with paradox.
Borges: Oh yes, of course � well I suppose philosophy springs from our perplexity. If you’ve read what I may be allowed to call “my works� � if you’ve read my sketches, whatever they are � you’d find that there is a very obvious symbol of perplexity to be found all the time, and that is the maze. I find that a very obvious symbol of perplexity. A maze and amazement go together, no? A symbol of amazement would be the maze.
Dutton: But philosophers seem not content ever to merely be confronted with perplexity, they want answers, systems.
Borges: Well, they’re right.
Dutton: They’re right?
Borges: Well, perhaps no systems are attainable, but the search for a system is very interesting.
Palencia-Roth: Would you call your work a search for a system?
Borges: No, I wouldn’t be as ambitious as all that. I would call it, well, not science fiction, but rather the fiction of philosophy, or the fiction of dreams. And also, I’m greatly interested in solipsism, which is only an extreme form of idealism. It is strange, though, that all the people who write on solipsism write about it in order to refute it. I haven’t seen a single book in favor of solipsism. I know what you would want to say: since there is only one dreamer, why do you write a book? But if there is only one dreamer, why could you not dream about writing a book?"
SOUNDTRACK:
Valeria Munarriz - "Alguien le dice al Tango (Jorge Luis Borges/Astor Piazzola )"
Susana "La Tana" Rinaldi - "El Tango" (Borges)
Astor Piazzolla - "El hombre de la esquina rosada" (Borges)
A. Perini (Ensemble Resonanz, Beat Furrer) - "Exploración de la biblioteca de Babel"
Internal Fusion - "La bibliothèque de Babel"
Krystenism - "The Library of Babel"
Catedra Saldaña - "La biblioteca de Babel" (Proyectual II)
Causa Sui - "Garden of Forking Paths"
Causa Sui - "Garden of Forking Paths (Live at Roskilde 2012)"
Causa sui denotes something which is generated within itself. This concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Becker, where it relates to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves. In Freud and Becker's case, the concept was often used as an immortality vessel, where something could create meaning or continue to create meaning beyond its own life.
If life (or a life) can be construed as a text, then the universe might be (analogous to) a library:
"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries."
This early, 1941 collection is a mini-gallery of Borges stories that revolve around construction and interpretation, imagination and understanding, of the universe. On the way, it takes in time, space, meaning, truth, consciousness, our selves and our relationship with the universe.
Vast and Ambitious
For Borges, Man is a reader or librarian trying to read, interpret and understand the Library.
It's a vast project. Like its object (and perhaps its subject), it's infinite. Vast books can and have been dedicated to the project.
Borges makes this project his own, from a fictional point of view. However, he works under a self-imposed constraint:
"It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books - setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them.
"A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books."
Levity and Brevity
The result is one of enormous brevity, yet it's no less intellectually challenging and stimulating.
Borges jokingly blames laziness, but it's actually an amazing facility to hint at in five minutes of our reading time what could take writers and philosophers 500 pages to labour through (and not communicate so clearly).
Besides, we can safely assume that Borges was familiar with some actual vast works on his subject matter, not just imaginary ones.
The Appearance of Reality
Borges doesn't need to be encyclopaedic in his approach to the universe. He just pretends to be encyclopaedic. He uses detail, citation, criticism to feign plausibility, verisimilitude, truth and comprehensiveness.
His aim is to create a fictitious world that appears to be real. He hopes his fragments will convince us that they contain the essence of the entirety.
However, the whole project remains fictional and illusory.
In one of the worlds that he creates, there is a belief that "all books are the work of a single author who is timeless and anonymous."
In a way, it seems, there is only one book, and one act of creation.
Borges the Builder
We've become accustomed to authors "world building". They strive to build a fictional world that convinces us of its veracity.
On the other hand, religions posit that God created the world, the entirety of the universe.
Borges might be a writer, but he seems to place himself somewhere between the conventional writer and God.
While God might have created the material world, Borges creates an abstract and imaginary world.
However, in the process, he self-consciously draws attention to the process and method of creation. He is a master of metafiction.
The Hermeneutics of the Library
Equally, Borges is interested in the interpretation and understanding of the universe, the Library, the book.
He works at the boundary of the imagination, philosophy and hermeneutics. Indeed, his writing suggests that philosophy is fundamentally a work of imagination and interpretation of the Library of the universe.
Writers and philosophers alike are trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe.
Once we accept this metaphor, this truth, Borges invites us to have some fun with the universe he has created.
In a world otherwise preoccupied with the pursuit of order, sense and truth, he introduces play and games that involve hoaxes, fraud, fallacy, artifice, illusion, unreality, illogic, mirrors, mazes, labyrinths.
A World Deciphered by Detectives
This places the curious reader in the role of a detective who must sift through the evidence in order to determine the meaning of life:
"Tlön may well be a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth forged by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men." (view spoiler)
This decipherment is not as easy as it sounds. There is no certainty that any path taken will lead to the truth.
Like one of Borges' narrators, we all work at "the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopaedia."
For all the detail that the encyclopaedia might contain, the mirror reminds us that the universe (like our minds) is infinite, recurring and self-reflexive.
Making Sense of Books
Because a book is a mere fragment of the universe, there should be no reason to believe that the truth can be found in a book, either easily or at all. One of the narrators refers to "the vain and superstitious habit of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of the palm of one's hand..."
Nevertheless, Borges implies that a book, (precisely) because it contains a fragment of the universe, can also reflect its entirety or, at least, its infinity:
"I had wondered how a book could be infinite. The only way I could surmise was that it be a cyclical, or circular, volume, a volume whose last page would be identical to the first, so that one might go on indefinitely."
The Chaotic Library
Still, insofar as the books Borges writes about contain aspects of the universe, they reflect the chaos of the universe as a whole. Perhaps a book is like a mirror held up to the universe, even if it is refracted through author and reader.
This focus on chaos is part of the significance of the last story, "The Garden of Forking Paths". The paths lead to "several futures" (though not necessarily all).
We are accustomed to believing that a choice of paths represents a spatial decision (e.g., which direction to head down).
However, "the garden of forking paths was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'several futures (not all)' suggested to me the image of a forking in time, rather than in space."
Erik Desmazières - "Library of Babel, Hall of Planets"
The Labyrinth of Time
The mysteries of the universe are equally and inevitably mysteries about time and the nature of time:
"All things happen to oneself, and happen precisely, precisely now. Century follows century, yet events occur only in the present."
Hermeneutically, the Library, the universe is a "labyrinth of symbols. An invisible labyrinth of time."
There is much in the stories about rival philosophies of time:
"[One school of philosophy] denies the existence of time; it argues that the present is undefined and indefinite, the future has no reality except as present hope, and the past has no reality except as present recollection...
"[Another school asserts that] all time has already passed, so that our life is but a crepuscular memory, or crepuscular reflection, doubtlessly distorted and mutilated, of an irrecoverable process."
We aren't asked to choose between these alternatives. Borges lets us explore many forked paths:
"The Garden of Forking Paths is a huge riddle, or parable, whose subject is time."
In the Borgesian world, our imagination can experience what it might be like if any one of these theories of time was true.
Five Minutes of Vastness
Ironically, Borges gifts us an experience of the vastness of infinity, of the labyrinth of time, in stories that rarely take more than five minutes to read. For Borges, this is the true pleasure of the imagination: to derive infinite pleasure from something infinitesimal.
Still, this world is capable of being simultaneously vast, illusory and mischievous.
Borge jokingly warns that some won't be able to get their heads around his Library:
"Since not everybody is capable of experiencing [the pleasure of the imagination,] many will have to content themselves with simulacra."
Even if we can get into the Borgesian world, we might find, like one of the narrators, that our historical grip on reality is illusory:
"With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he realised that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him."
If only we could be certain that we are the dreamer, not the dream!
But is this just the ego vainly trying to master an infinite universe of which it has no real comprehension and over which it has no real power?
For Borges, as well as us, the questions have vast and entertaining implications.
ADDED EXTRAS:
“Merely a Man of Letters� - An Interview with Jorge Luis Borges by Denis Dutton, Michael Palencia-Roth and Lawrence I. Berkove
Podcast:
"Dutton: Why don’t you tell us about some of the philosophers who have influenced your work, in whom you’ve been the most interested?"
...
"Borges: ...I have no personal system of philosophy. I never attempt to do that. I am merely a man of letters. In the same way, for example that � well, of course, I shouldn’t perhaps choose this as an example � in the same way that Dante used theology for the purpose of poetry, or Milton used theology for the purposes of his poetry, why shouldn’t I use philosophy, especially idealistic philosophy � philosophy to which I was attracted � for the purposes of writing a tale, of writing a story? I suppose that is allowable, no?
Dutton: You share one thing certainly with philosophers, and that is a fascination with perplexity, with paradox.
Borges: Oh yes, of course � well I suppose philosophy springs from our perplexity. If you’ve read what I may be allowed to call “my works� � if you’ve read my sketches, whatever they are � you’d find that there is a very obvious symbol of perplexity to be found all the time, and that is the maze. I find that a very obvious symbol of perplexity. A maze and amazement go together, no? A symbol of amazement would be the maze.
Dutton: But philosophers seem not content ever to merely be confronted with perplexity, they want answers, systems.
Borges: Well, they’re right.
Dutton: They’re right?
Borges: Well, perhaps no systems are attainable, but the search for a system is very interesting.
Palencia-Roth: Would you call your work a search for a system?
Borges: No, I wouldn’t be as ambitious as all that. I would call it, well, not science fiction, but rather the fiction of philosophy, or the fiction of dreams. And also, I’m greatly interested in solipsism, which is only an extreme form of idealism. It is strange, though, that all the people who write on solipsism write about it in order to refute it. I haven’t seen a single book in favor of solipsism. I know what you would want to say: since there is only one dreamer, why do you write a book? But if there is only one dreamer, why could you not dream about writing a book?"
SOUNDTRACK:
Valeria Munarriz - "Alguien le dice al Tango (Jorge Luis Borges/Astor Piazzola )"
Susana "La Tana" Rinaldi - "El Tango" (Borges)
Astor Piazzolla - "El hombre de la esquina rosada" (Borges)
A. Perini (Ensemble Resonanz, Beat Furrer) - "Exploración de la biblioteca de Babel"
Internal Fusion - "La bibliothèque de Babel"
Krystenism - "The Library of Babel"
Catedra Saldaña - "La biblioteca de Babel" (Proyectual II)
Causa Sui - "Garden of Forking Paths"
Causa Sui - "Garden of Forking Paths (Live at Roskilde 2012)"
Causa sui denotes something which is generated within itself. This concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Becker, where it relates to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves. In Freud and Becker's case, the concept was often used as an immortality vessel, where something could create meaning or continue to create meaning beyond its own life.
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Jibran
(last edited Jul 16, 2015 04:30AM)
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Jul 16, 2015 04:30AM
The fascinating world of Borges has come alive in your detailed review, Ian. I've been meaning to resume my readings of the maestro and your review does well to nudge me in that direction. Thanks for sharing!
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Another insightful, exciting review. I love Borges and how in such short works he explores enormous subjects and creates vast worlds. I was especially fond of Forking Paths. I love how he mixes a sense of play while dealing with serious topics and raising thoughtful questions. Just the phrase "the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopaedia" provides stimulus for musing and long meditations/ruminations.I also loved the Desmazieres' prints. As always, your links are both fun and complement your review and lead to more insights about the work at hand. (But what music should I listen to?)
This review is one of my favorites of yours, Ian, maybe partly because it is about one of my favorite works. I feel compelled to reread Forking Paths in the light of your ideas and insights.
This is my feeble attempt to think through some of what you offer. Thanks again for brightening my day!
Jibran wrote: "The fascinating world of Borges has come alive in your detailed review, Ian. I've been meaning to resume my readings of the maestro and your review does well to nudge me in that direction."Thanks, Jibran. Borges is far more fascinating than I've conveyed. I originally wanted to pursue the links to the philosophers who influenced his perspective. I'll have to leave that to another day. And another review perhaps.
Ellie wrote: "Another insightful, exciting review. I love Borges and how in such short works he explores enormous subjects and creates vast worlds. I was especially fond of Forking Paths."Thanks, Ellie. You're my idea of a perfect reader! I'm away on a work trip at the moment. I'll remedy the omission of a soundtrack on the weekend!
Stellar review, Ian! With every Borges' review I am unearthing, I am finding myself drawn to his world with a hypnotic air. The genius of his mind to create a metaphysical world mirroring veracity could be sole reason to read him. Thanks for nudging me good.
Outstanding review, Ian. Borges would have been pleased.
Ian wrote: "Ellie wrote: "Another insightful, exciting review. I love Borges and how in such short works he explores enormous subjects and creates vast worlds. I was especially fond of Forking Paths."Thanks,..."
Yay!! I'll look forward to it!
Ellie wrote: "Yay!! I'll look forward to it!"Interview and soundtrack added!
Thanks for this beautiful and beautifully clear review. I haven't touched any of Borges' books for many years. Time to get him back on my "To Read" list. And as always, nothing like the added attractions of a great review by Ian. Thanks for all of that.
Thanks so much, Margaret. All roads lead to the Library!
Outstanding tour. He is quite a contrast from the Hegel you were recently wrestling with. You wisely empasize the playfulness, but his model of reality is arguably just as serious. Instead of every precept built up explicitly and painfully in steps with logic, Borges "cheats" by constructing knowledge by leaps with illusion and implication. The pieces are so dense and disoriented I can't take many in one period. Sort of like looking at Escher prints--a few is enough to last a long time.
Thanks, Michael. There's actually a bit of a cross-over in my recent reading of Hegel, Heidegger, Borges and Kundera that I'll continue to explore. I definitely agree about Borges' cheating, illusion and playfulness. It was interesting that, when I typed up some notes and then reverted to the text, I discovered that he had raised such significant issues in only four or five pages. Like you, I'm putting him away for a few weeks while I read some wedgies or in-betweenies.
